Notifications can be managed in browser preferences. A small town has witnessed ugly scenes as neo-Nazis besiege the Hotel Leonardo an illustration of the country’s mounting xenophobia I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice Once a model Social Democrat community where the poor in Germany’s Weimar Republic found help and support, the small town of Freital, just south of Dresden, has become a byword for German racism and intolerance. Its target is Hotel Leonardo, or rather, the 300 or so asylum-seekers who are now virtual prisoners in the former conference hotel. Thanks to local hostility the building is under a round-the-clock police guard and surrounded by a 10ft-high wire fence. Police patrol cars have blocked off access roads. His anxiety is justified. Since March this year the hotel has been the scene of angry anti-foreigner protests in which the rule of the lynch mob has held sway. Up to 1,200 Freital residents and neo-Nazi hangers-on have gathered outside the hostel on weekday evenings chanting slogans such as “Filth out” and “This is no place to flee to”. The often-intoxicated mob threw eggs and shot fireworks at the hostel claiming that Freital was “defending itself”. The small groups of local refugee supporters who tried to show sympathy with the asylum-seekers had to be protected by riot police. Freital’s abortive meeting and the mass anti-foreigner protests outside the hostel, were merely the latest outbursts of xenophobia violence to have erupted in Germany as the country struggles to accommodate an expected 400,000 refugees this year. The figure is almost double the quota Germany took in during 2014. Accommodation marked out for asylum-seekers has been set ablaze across Germany since late last year. The most recent arson attack was carried out at a future hostel in the east German city of Meissen last week. Attacks against foreigners, predominantly in eastern Germany, have doubled since last year. In Freital alone there have been a number of incidents including an assault on an asylum-seeker, and an attempt to firebomb refugee accommodation. Germany’s mounting xenophobia has been condemned by all political parties. Chancellor Angela Merkel and the heads of all religious organisations have denounced the phenomenon. Last week Joachim Gauck, the German President, departed from his prearranged text during a speech to a conference in Berlin and described violence as “repugnant”. He warned that “xenophobic attitudes” had hardened. In Freital, where many say the rise of Communism in East Germany and the disenchantment that followed sparked today’s right-wing backlash, anti-foreigner feeling has been encouraged by members of the region’s Pegida (Patriotic Europeans Against Islamification of the West) movement. The group has staged mass demonstrations attracting up to 20,000 people in Dresden earlier this year. Lutz Bachmann, the Pegida leader who posed on Facebook wearing an Adolf Hitler moustache, lives nearby. Sociologists have pointed out that before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990, the only foreigners seen in the region were contract workers from fellow Communist countries such as Vietnam who were forced to live apart from Germans in special hostels. The protests against Freital’s Hotel Leonardo began when a resident called Mario Wagner launched a “No to the Home” campaign and attracted the support of more than 2,000 residents who signed his petition. The movement spread rapidly and since then copycat “No to the Home” groups have started throughout the region. Mr Wagner lives in one of the three East German Communist-era blocks that stand opposite Hotel Leonardo. Last week groups of residents sat outside swigging beer. “They are all here to take our money. The sooner the scum clears out the better,” said one, who declined to give his name. Ines Kummer, one of Freital’s few Green Party city councillors, said she had been threatened and shouted at by residents for showing support for the asylum-seekers. “Right-wing nationalism and anti- foreigner attitudes have taken root in this part of Germany,” she told The Independent. “Around here the established parties, like Ms Merkel’s ruling conservatives, have not condemned the prevalent racism; they chose to brush it aside. Now it’s too late.” Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies The TimesEight members of a German neo-Nazi group were jailed yesterday for terrorism and attempted murder after a series of bomb attacks against refugees and left-wing activists named after their base in a town in Saxony sought to create a climate of fear to put migrants off coming The group emerged at the height of the influx of asylum seekers in 2015 It carried out attacks on a left-wing politician’s car and a hostel for refugees in the town a pizza delivery driver and warehouse worker were sentenced to ten and nine and a half years in jail respectively Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker This timely doc uses the rise of the far-right in a German town as a microcosm for a larger wave of issues Alaska: A Year in the Wild offers a lovely escape big questions are askedThis article is more than 7 years oldThis timely doc uses the rise of the far-right in a German town as a microcosm for a larger wave of issues my main thought was this: is it more soul-shrivelling to hear about the resurgence of the far right in a country you hoped had been inoculated against it for all time by the horrors of the Holocaust or to see white supremacy steadily gain pace across the globe Panorama focused on an extremist cell called the Freital Group and its increasingly violent activities in the latter half of 2015 using the specific conditions in their corner of the world as the lens through which to view the wider malaise Reunification in 1989 led to the end of most of the industry in the blue collar area who has lived through the good times and the bad says: “We work in order to meet bills and taxes There is nothing left for feeding others.” In 2015, the immigration crisis hit and Angela Merkel’s open-door policy meant that hundreds of refugees and economic migrants arrived in the town of 40,000 unwelcoming people The Freital Group emerged during a welter of hostility and those who tried to help the newcomers became targets for vitriol and violence from their neighbours “There was a fear of being overrun by a few thousand who would continue to live in their own way,” says Dirk His friend later expands upon the point: unlike native Germans migrants would have “no respect for pretty blond women” was facing online death threats and had to send her Ghanian foster son away for his own safety The Freital Group decided to make their feelings known first by blowing up the car of a local politician known to be helping asylum seekers they were able to move on to more violent attacks in which it was only a matter of purest chance that no one was killed When they were arrested they were at first only charged as ordinary criminals It wasn’t until Germany’s federal prosecutor took over the case that the group was treated as a terrorist organisation Dirk and his friends think the attackers are just bigmouthed boys who feel hard done by What do you do as this plays out across towns Is a hardening of prejudice inevitable as nations are forced to play host and share resources that are – whether in fact or in perception – scarce Do we come down hard on anyone who questions the wisdom of untrammelled immigration we can all escape to Alaska (the programme opened at the beginning of the frozen north-west territory’s seven-month winter and didn’t set out to do anything more extraordinary or impossible than record life as it plays out on ice sheets and up mountains at temperatures that can freeze oceans all the way to the north pole seeking vegetation not yet frozen beneath the snow fluff up the new white and hope the scavenging is – in arctic terms – easy shrugging off temperatures that would kill us and bashing their fishy finds to death on nearby rocks – nature icy white in tooth and claw Seven feet of snow falls and ice crystals fill t he air the least endearing of all cats – track snowshoe hares but we have to keep faith that this kind of show at this kind of time (9pm) won’t show us a dead bunny – and so it happily proves felled by its lack of fat reserves because it spent its youthful energy in the summer trying to grow up solid hour of astonishing sights – a giant Christmas card with a savage indifference at its heart Clausnitz -- Before I headed for a reporting trip to Saxony I mentally prepared for a hostile reception the eastern state has gained a reputation for xenophobia after numerous violent demonstrations staged against refugees And I was going to report on the refugee issue Clausnitz and Freital have gained notoriety for vitriolic protests against the almost 900,000 asylum seekers who have arrived in Germany over the past year to seek refuge from war and misery we've received police statements regularly about fire breaking out at refugee homes or planned accommodation for migrants these likely arson cases took place in the same picturesque small towns and villages dotted across Saxony whose capital Dresden is the cradle of the Islamophobic movement PEGIDA Convictions for them are few and far between such attacks are only one of many forms of intimidation that refugees face daily in the state Each of the seven Syrians I spoke to in a town called Freital had a personal experience to relate One young man said he wanted to go to a stadium to watch a football match Another recounted how he was just walking along the streets when a car pulled up next to him A middle aged man spoke of his wife who had her headscarf ripped off by a complete stranger in the street Another young man said he was woken up by someone ringing his doorbell his visitors were three men carrying wooden slats explaining that they didn't speak enough German to make themselves understood recalling an incident when he was handcuffed as he arrived at Dresden train station and then searched for no obvious reason Although it counted once as one of the disadvantaged disenfranchised eastern states which struggled to curb a brain drain to western states after reunification Saxony has in recent years began to turn the tide Like the bombed out town centre of Dresden which has been completely rebuilt with billions in "solidarity funds" from the federal government Saxony's economy is starting to shimmer again they looked far less menacing compared to some rough and tumble French suburbs where even police think twice before stepping in pretty local scenery often jars with the violence directed at the refugees where far-right protesters fought pitched battles with youth refugees over several consecutive days their 'warzone' was just steps away from the medieval towers that surround a pretty town centre with restored and freshly painted buildings where demonstrators clashed with security officers outside an asylum seeker shelter with front lawns complete with garden gnomes and nary a spot of litter in sight where a bus carrying refugees was mobbed by a marauding crowd one travels through a pretty hilly landscape with hiking trails lined with fruit-laden trees At the carpark of a supermarket near Clausnitz and on a highstreet in Freital I tried to get locals to tell me what they thought of refugees Trying to stop strangers in the street for interviews is always a bit of a hit and miss and there will always be more people who walk on and refuse to hear you out rather than those who would oblige But it turned out to be a particularly strange vox-pox experience took a moment to stop and listen to what I had to ask It was only once they heard the word "refugees" that many stiffened and said Those who were against refugees had very little to say who gave me a blunt: "They should disappear from the face of the world" Those who would chat at length were those who said they didn't understand why there was so much hate against refugees One pensioner said the ones who were complaining loudest are “lazy thugs” who sit in front of the television and drink beer rather than go out and look for a job "They say that refugees are stealing their jobs they are just too lazy to get one," he said An elderly woman gathering prunes in her front yard said she hadn't had any personal contact with refugees in her village who sometimes walk past her house on the way to the supermarket Asked if she was happy for them to be staying just a few houses away Maybe because Saxony has been so widely portrayed by mainstream media as a "brown" state (in reference to the colour of the Nazi's uniform) many who are on the fence prefer to stay quiet for fear that any sign of slightest concern about the newcomers could be construed as xenophobia and hence brand them Nazis So why is the mood so dark against refugees here An often cited argument is that there was never a thorough 'de-Nazification' of eastern states as they went from a fascist dictatorship to communist rule which from the 1960s was ploughed into its responsibility over the Nazi past and the Holocaust A pastor in Heidenau also said east Germans felt like they had only just found their feet after the massive changes wrought by the reunification and once again felt rocked by changes they didn't ask for Some people also felt like they had been left behind against the backdrop of rapid progress when they were branded as "the mob" by politicians or the media But for every person who throws a Molotov cocktail through the window of a refugee shelter there are five others who are quietly labouring away to welcome the newcomers But the work of these volunteers -- who do everything from teaching the newcomers German to helping them decipher official letters and draft answers to them -- takes place away from the media spotlight and is often overshadowed by attacks or angry protests at asylum shelters What I found that there were hundreds if not thousands of volunteers in Saxony taking time to sit down with the children every day after school to help them with their homework The place where I interviewed the Syrian refugees in Freital is an association that organises activities like metalwork workshops or excursions to the surrounding woods that familiarises them with their new environment A volunteer group helped raise money to set up a wi-fi network for refugees living in two separate housing blocks so that they could Skype with their loved ones still stuck in war zones It also helped battle the telecoms company when the network went down one elderly neighbour of the refugees asked a young asylum seeker what he thought of the marmelade and told him to come over and pick up the cakes that she had baked for him saying only that was the young boy’s “German grandma.” Not what I was expected to find when I was preparing for my trip news broke that a Syrian suspected of planning a bomb attack had evaded arrest in the town of Chemnitz living in Saxony’s biggest city of Leipzig (Al-Bakr would eventually be found hanged in his cell) this will contribute in some way toward dispersing the cloud of general suspicion hanging over the refugees in the state Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a leading global news agency providing fast comprehensive and verified coverage of the events shaping our world and of the issues affecting our daily lives Drawing from an unparalleled news gathering network across 151 countries AFP is also a world leader in digital verification With 2,400 staff representing 100 different nationalities with a unique quality of multimedia storytelling spanning video Photo Gallery: The Terrorists from Freital For example when people with screen names like Ninepin Karl Riot-Rico and Cuckoo join forces to fire off Dum Bum-brand fireworks in the middle of the night Or when they complain in a chat service called Kakao Talk that they are having trouble getting ahold of the fruit But terror can also be terribly concrete -- if you know that "fruit" is a code word for "explosives." And when you realize that an elderly care worker a warehouse worker and an unemployed person were preparing to launch a wave of right-wing terror attacks across Saxony The eastern German state had already given birth to one neo-Nazi terror cell the National Socialist Underground (NSU) murdered nine people across Germany eight of Turkish background and one from Greece police investigators believe that another right-wing extremist cell was developing in the state the crack German police unit GSG 9 arrested five suspected members of the cell in Freital They joined others who were already behind bars Federal prosecutors are calling the cell the "Freital Group" and have labeled it a terrorist organization and that it sought to "violently promulgate its right-extremist ideology by way of attacks against asylum-seekers and those of a different political orientation." The group is believed to have carried out three attacks thus far the suspected terror group is thought to have at least accepted that its actions might result in the deaths of four asylum-seekers prosecutors are investigating whether additional attacks might be attributable to the accused the suspected group members could face life sentences in prison The case shows a shift in the approach to far-right violence in Germany The German judiciary long declined to view attacks on refugees particularly those committed on refugee hostels New attacks on asylum-seeker hostels in Germany are reported on a regular basis But police officials nevertheless did not approach the wave of right-wing violence as a national problem it seemed as though law enforcement didn't exist at all and that right-wing extremists could attack asylum-seekers and intimidate residents at will told SPIEGEL in a February interview that the far right was splintered that if it became apparent that far-right associations were carrying out attacks on refugee shelters That is what happened in Saxony on Tuesday The operation in Freital isn't just emblematic of the state's long-overdue resolve It also sheds light on what has gone wrong up until now Logs of intercepted telephone conversations and online chats suggest that Saxon police were well informed early on of the motives and plans of the Freital Group a secret witness has appeared who may have been an undercover police investigator placed inside the group Which raises the question: Could the attacks have been prevented Both police officials and local prosecutors in Saxony have been reticent and have been disinclined to believe that the right-wing group intended to kill Xenophobes could hardly find a better place to live than Freital where the anti-immigrant group Pegida has been staging demonstrations for over a year now and it has also been a hotspot of anti-refugee protests When a former hotel in the city was to be transformed into an initial reception center for refugees with hundreds of police struggling to keep the situation under control Pegida head Lutz Bachmann supported the protest visited a local citizens' initiative and exhorted on Facebook: "To the streets Defend yourselves!" It was at a Freital hairdresser where the notorious photo of Bachmann-as-Hitler was taken Freital also had a group that named itself after a city bus route: FTL/360 It was founded in early 2015 after two Moroccans allegedly harassed schoolchildren in a public bus Members of the vigilante group wanted to patrol in buses and ensure order A picture of the group on the internet is accompanied by a motto that in hindsight speaks volumes: "In the east there is a tradition of fireworks going off before New Year's." Investigators believe that FTL/360 could be the embryo of the Freital Group Several of the eight terror suspects had connections to the vigilante group When they weren't riding around on city buses as self-anointed security guards they spent their time in the "Blue Lagoon." That was their name for an Aral service station in Freital located directly across the street from the police station bad-mouthed foreigners and developed plans to stop them They also sent each other chat messages of the most disgusting sort: "We are Nazis to the bitter end!" Or threats: "Hang 'em on the next light post with a note now he's hanging here." Kanacke is a disparaging and racist German term for foreigners one of the suspects wrote that "Kanacken" are "defective biological entities that must be annihilated." Or: "Niggers The right-wingers used several chat channels for internal communication There was one for inconsequential discussions a "Pyrochat" for more radical group members and an encrypted "Black Chat," open to just 16 participants That is where the attack plans were discussed One person involved says that "only the terrorists" used the "Black Chat" channel The group quickly became focused on explosives Investigators believe that the group experimented with illegal fireworks from the Czech Republic and Poland with names like La Bomba Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) has examined the fireworks and come to the conclusion that they could be deadly The experts concluded that each firework has the explosive power of 30 grams of TNT Deadly lung injuries could result from standing too close during an explosion and shrapnel could also lead to death The Freital-based anti-asylum group apparently had a lot of fun with their experiments a regional bus driver whose real name is Philipp W. wrote: "Just set off a firework at the intersection in front of a shelter I can always combine it with smaller attacks." The group gradually escalated to the point that they carried out their first attack in Freital A multi-family house located at Bahnhofstrasse 26 had been made available to refugees a pizza delivery man and a suspected member of the Dresden hooligan group "Fist of the East" ("Faust des Ostens") is suspected of having placed an explosive on the sill of a ground-floor kitchen window and lit the fuse The resulting explosion shattered the window destroyed the frame and crumbled part of the wall Shrapnel impacted a wall four meters (13 feet) away owing to the fact that no one was in the kitchen at the time Chat records lead investigators to believe that other members of the group knew about F.'s impending attack on the apartment They discussed the purchase of fireworks in the Czech Republic and Gypsy Philli exulted: "Soon we'll have enough together to really create a ruckus in Freital." But something went amiss: Just a few hours after the explosion police ran into two members of the group at the site of the attack and took down their personal details unknown perpetrators attacked a left-wing residential project called "Mangelwirtschaft," or Economy of Scarcity a site right-wingers from Freital visited regularly The city of Dresden had wanted to make an Übigau gymnasium available to refugees but angry locals blocked the entrance to the site before police were able to drive off the protesters Investigators believe that members of the suspected right-wing terror group saw themselves as "protectors" of the protesters Officials say that group members regularly met in front of the Übigau gymnasium a demonstrator was injured at the site by two unidentified persons The "protectors" immediately suspected that the left-wingers from "Mangelwirtschaft" were responsible and they wanted revenge One wrote: "I'm going crazy tonight!" Another replied: "They'll get what's coming to them!" "Mangelwirtschaft" was attacked from both the front and the back attached to plastic bottles filled with butyric acid the attack was celebrated: "The washing up is finished Hope that we can repeat such a fruit fest or party." What the budding terrorists didn't know: They had long since landed on the police radar There are records of monitored telephone calls made on the day of the attack on "Mangelwirtschaft." Three hours before the event police officers in Leipzig listened to a call made by suspect Mike S The subject of the conversation was Übigau and he asked what he should bring aside from a pot and BS BS stands for the German word for butyric acid "Buttersäure," and the pot was likely for the explosives The pot was once again discussed as was the fact that four bottles of butyric acid were needed the suspects spoke of the fireworks Super Cobra 6 and Cobra 12 asked if he could get a Cobra: "Because of Übigau The tools for the attack were clear and the site had been named Yet nobody did anything to stop the perpetrators It could be that the recording was made electronically and only later analyzed It could also be that the Leipzig-based officer listening in didn't know the area and didn't put two and two together an ominous witness presented himself to the Dresden police The name of the informant has remained secret and his address was listed as that of police headquarters Proof of identity was noted as "police badge." Was the witness a police officer It quickly became apparent that the man was an insider He was familiar with the group's structure in addition to the names and aliases of members He testified about the attack on the leftist residential project and presented online chat records It quickly became clear that he had also been at the Übigau site when the attack started He says that he was handed a paving stone to throw but that he had quickly passed it along to someone else he behaved just as undercover cops are trained to act so as to avoid committing crimes while on duty Officials familiar with the case insist that there were no undercover investigators inside the group and say the witness is not a police officer have an explanation for the "police badge" entry suspicions remain that the investigators knew about the next steps planned by the terrorist group but didn't immediately do anything to stop them Twelve days passed between the monitored telephone conversations and the group's next It also came four days after the appearance of the odd witness 31 when the Freital Group allegedly carried out the attack that federal prosecutors have classified as attempted murder the target was an asylum hostel in Freital Explosives were placed at three windows and once again Splinters of glass eight-millimeters thick flew through the rooms inside with one resident receiving eye and forehead injuries The rest of the refugees were lucky: Ahmed H was just going to the refrigerator and saw the burning fuse in the window by chance Everyone ran out of the kitchen and slammed the door behind them the first arrest warrants went out and the Freital Group was stopped State prosecutors in Dresden would have been happy enough to let the case be tried at a lower court the charges had been finished and ready since Feb The state prosecutors did not believe the perpetrators had meant to kill the hostel residents rather they felt the group had merely been trying to intimidate the residents and that the attack had a "demonstrative character." They didn't make a connection between the series of attacks and terrorism which accounts for the arrests of additional group members earlier this week but are also pursuing charges of four counts of attempted murder knew full well how dangerous their fireworks were they consider xenophobia to be the group's primary motive had already been in pretrial detention for more than five months by the time the case was handed over to the feds He is no longer prone to making the kind of jokes he was known for in the chat records He recently complained in a letter to his girlfriend that he has been locked away for weeks with all kinds of foreigners despite the presumption of innocence Because of "a broken window and a couple of fire-crackers." After all "I thought we lived under the rule of law." Demonstrations last summer against a planned initial reception facility in Freital The protests continued for days and police had difficulty keeping the situation under control the city gave birth to the "Freital Group," which federal prosecutors suspect of being a terrorist organization He is suspected of being a member of the Freital Group which used fireworks to create explosions at refugee hostels The aftermath of one of the attacks thought to have been perpetrated by the Freital Group The attackers placed explosives at three windows of an apartment housing four refugees Chief Federal Prosecutor Peter Frank told SPIEGEL earlier this year that the right wing was fragmented but added that he would take charge of any investigation which revealed organized activity federal prosecutors took over the Freital investigation Freital is a town of around 40,000 people near Dresden The roots of the Freital Group are likely in a vigilante group called FTL/360 formed after two Moroccans allegedly harassed schoolchildren in a public bus You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience and security Vitra museum’s exhibition of design during 40 years of a divided Germany challenges lazy stereotypes to unveil a complex story of unlikely connections The Vitra Design Museum was founded in 1989 the year the Berlin Wall came down ahead of German reunification in 1990 How appropriate then that it should host the first exhibition to look at German design in both the East (German Democratic Republic) and the West (Federal Republic of Germany) during the four decades of separation German design 1949-1989 – Two Countries challenges the popular but lazy stereotypes that have prevailed – that of the sleek functionalist and sophisticated designs of West Germany and the cheap tacky and generally all round inferior output of the GDR perhaps best personified by the Trabant car was ‘much more complicated and interesting’ Rather than highlight just the well-covered differences this new show is more interested in the parallels and crossovers that existed despite the very different political regimes and economic conditions Perhaps some of the similarities should be of no surprise – after all some of the leading designers of the time had studied together at Bauhaus But even more than 30 years after the wall came down director of exhibition co-producer the Wüstenrot Foundation the walls of divisions were immaterial as well as material Vitra Design Museum curator Erika Pinner says she perhaps benefited from an outsider’s perspective research for the exhibition started with an exploration of the differences before identifying a more nuanced design narrative than the received binary stereotypes of East and West ‘There are a lot of misconceptions about East German design and we want to rectify some of that we do not want to romanticise what was happening in GDR,’ she says the exhibition introduces the division of Germany and then explores parallels similarities and differences in the following decades up to reunification it is clear that design played an important part in the construction of a new national identity with the FRG keen to eradicate the fascist past of the Nazi regime and both countries embarking on major reconstruction – from passports Another focus was creating designs to exhibit at international trade shows which were important to both for economic recovery ‘Both states understood the importance of design in reconstructing and developing the national identity It had a crucial role to play and was taken very seriously,’ says Pinner However the designers of the East and West were of course working in very different political contexts even more so after the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and the Cold War that followed Pinner says debates on Formalism suggested that modernism was Western and capitalist design should be inspired by the Soviet model while incorporating traditional German heritage There was no doubt that the standard of materials available to designers was lower in the East than the West Nor that designers were working with very different objectives with those in the centrally-controlled East prioritising longevity and mendability over the capitalist consumerism of the West The work of Dieter Rams and others helped further the reputation of West Germany for high quality design of consumer goods Rather than status symbols such as Porsche luxury cars for the few the GDR’s Office for Industrial Design aimed to produce affordable products for broad sections of the population Nonetheless there are still striking parallels Designers on both side of the wall were experimenting with materials and in particular plastics – Rams’ record player for Braun was known as ‘snow white’s coffin’ because of its innovative Plexiglas lid Designers in both countries were influenced by the space age and this is reflected in the aesthetic of some designs of that time Peter Ghyczy’s groovy polyurethane Garden Egg Chair of 1968 was designed in the West but mass produced in the East although it would have been unaffordable to residents there Rudolf Horn designed the more sober MDW-Einbauwand modular storage system that proved popular all over the GDR The last section covers the period from the oil crisis of 1973 to 1989 Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik approach of rapprochement with East Germany was a prelude of the changes to come This time also saw the completion of a major design project for the Palace of the Republic in Berlin and lighting from this important project is included in the exhibition as well as moves towards the digital – one of the first Apple computers was designed by the German agency frogdesign the GDR’s state-owned company Robotron developed the PC 1715 computer in 1985 for government authorities While the work of Dieter Rams for Braun and Otl Aicher’s pictograms for the Munich Olympics are familiar there’s plenty from what Pinner describes as GDR’s ‘rich design culture’ that will be fresh to exhibition visitors more than 30 years on from the GDR’s demise there are some aspects of the East German approach to design that resonate strongly with the challenges of sustainability  – that of frugality and the idea of creating longer lasting products that are capable of repair the exhibition is travelling to the former East Germany for a stint in Dresden German Design: 1949 – 1989 Two Countries, One History, until 5 September 2021 at the Vitra Design Museum and from October 15 to February 20 2022 at the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden Sign up to receive regular briefings, updates and our weekly newsletter – all designed to bring you the best stories from RIBAJ.com Sign up to receive regular briefings, updates and our weekly newsletter – all designed to bring you the best stories from RIBAJ.com these places are inextricably linked not only for being in the eastern state of Saxony but also by the far-right extremists who have The death of a 35-year-old German man in the early hours of Sunday — allegedly at the hands of two asylum-seekers — sparked two days of protests in Chemnitz that shocked many and led to another round of soul-searching over the reach of xenophobia in Saxony and the rest of Germany Read more: Violence in Chemnitz: A timeline of events told DW he was not surprised by the events in Chemnitz though it was not of this magnitude," said Kasek who was until recently co-chair of Saxony's Green party That is the starting point for people who think they have found an outlet The issue is not to commemorate a dead person but that pent-up anger and frustration need to get out." if the issue is about finding an outlet for frustration Hate and racism in DresdenTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Eastern Germany lags behind the west economically but researchers say that is not necessarily the reason far-right extremism has caught on in the region A study last year found that attitudes carried over from communist former-East Germany have made people in today's east far more likely to be virulently xenophobic The report concluded that eastern Germans are socialized to have an "exaggerated need for harmony 'purity' and order" as well as a "collective overwhelmingly positive and ethnically pure identity." It also highlighted a "selective culture of memory," in which eastern Germans repress negative memories of the communist past fail to come to terms with the legacy of Nazi anti-Semitism and tend to blame foreigners for social and economic problems.  The study was slammed by Saxony's ruling Christian Democratic party (CDU) and months later disavowed by Iris Gleicke who was then the federal government commissioner for eastern German affairs and had commissioned it the findings were backed up by researchers in the field in eastern Germany Read more: 'There's a lack of civil society' "The right is so big in the meantime that it has created its own niches that provide everything," Andreas Zick a professor at the University of Bielefeld and head of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence "They now have the third generation of right-wing extremists The right creates jobs; the right provides support and help The problem is that the state can no longer reach the scene." along with the rest of what had been East Germany at times in coalition with the Social Democrats or Free Democrats But with the rise of the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany party (AfD) the CDU's grip on the state has begun to slip in recent years The AfD won 9.7 percent in the 2014 Saxony elections entering the state parliament for the first time besting the CDU by a tenth of a percentage point Read more: AfD mobilized irrational fears of future, especially in the east, say pollsters neo-Nazism is especially pronounced in Saxony also has to do with a certain attitude  [and with] the shortcomings of the Saxon state government didn't take it seriously and didn't do enough against it," Kasek said Few foreigners - but a hotbed for xenophobia?To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Saxony's CDU rejects such accusations, pointing to the town of Ostritz where state Premier Michael Kretschmer took part in a three-day peace festival that drew thousands of people in late April to counter a neo-Nazi rally that drew around 1,200 to celebrate Hitler's birthday But the prevalence of the far-right is not limited to eastern Germany "Situating the problem of far-right extremism in Saxony and the newly formed states of Germany is too easy," said Michel Friedman a journalist and former deputy head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany who hosts two talk shows at DW After 1945 there was no zero hour when it came to racism The powers that have upheld nostalgia for Hitler in Germany have now spanned three generations."  The Times There are no swastikas on display but old demons are stirring in towns across Germany Resentment towards asylum seekers is growing as the country struggles to find accommodation for the record numbers arriving At least 450,000 are expected to claim refugee status in Europe’s richest nation this year leading the authorities to order more small communities to take a share of the newcomers The greatest number of migrant arrivals was last month — 79,000 there were 202 attacks on refugee accommodation already more than the total for the whole of last year The scale of the influx facing Germany is significant: the country had 40 per cent of all new asylum applications in the entire European Union in the first three months of the year a town of 40,000 close to Dresden in the former east German state of Saxony is using a former hotel to house 300 asylum seekers and is on the front line of German resistance to the new wave of foreigners The streets are calm and there is no racist graffiti “There are many Nazis here in Freital,” said Rene Otto a builder who has joined weekly protests outside the hotel “There are many who think that Germany should take care of its own people first We have been taking care way too much of other countries for decades Mr Otto was one of several locals willing to speak out in a way that would have been unimaginable a generation ago by Germans who felt bound by postwar taboos to be nice to foreigners there has to be an end to it at some point.” “Ninety per cent of the population does not want them here.” A 60-year-old woman walking her dog near the asylum hostel said: “I am not against foreigners who was photographed last week giving supporters of the Freital asylum seekers a Nazi salute may face prosecution for making the banned gesture A car belonging to a left-wing politician seen as supporting the migrants was firebombed last week Refugees say that they fear for their safety in the German town that they had spent thousands of pounds and months of dangerous travel to reach “In Freital there are many racists,” said Angosom “We cannot go out because there are demonstrations People shout from their cars ‘Schwarze raus’ [Get out blacks] We want good relations with Germans but if we say hello they give us a funny look.” believes that it has a strong grip across eastern Germany “Right-wing extremism started to rebuild in the former east Germany in the younger generation in the 1990s,” she said but was directed before the fall of the Berlin Wall at reunifying the country Now it was spreading among those disenchanted by their lack of success in modern Germany mainly low-qualified young men from impoverished areas German politicians have avoided stirring debate about migrants for fear of stoking nationalism but a popular TV presenter last week placed the issue at the top of the agenda with an attack on opponents of refugees “If you are not of the opinion that all refugees are spongers who should be hunted down pillory people in public,” Anja Reschke said Her commentary has been viewed 8.2 million times on Facebook and other leading politicians have appealed for calm “Freital must not become a place for extremists violent protesters and aggressive conflict,” they said in a joint statement “We are asking the protesters in Freital to stay peaceful and to respect the right of all residents to peace and quiet critical and solution-oriented discussion.”